On Triggers and Healing

A Saturday Bonus😁

Good morning beloved reader,

May this quote from Dr. Gabor Maté — with which I deeply resonate — serve the evolution of our human consciousness (the bolding is by me):

“When I get triggered, it’s not because somebody did something. It’s because what they did happened to set off the explosive charge of the baggage I’m carrying. 

So if I carry the emotional baggage of somebody who doesn’t have a sense of being wanted and being important, anything later on that reminds me of that, will trigger me and drive my behavior. 

That’s how trauma works. It’s embedded in the nervous system, in the brain, in the form of emotional sub-verbal memory.”

This beautiful description of how we can be triggered, points towards being responsible for our own “muck” or shadow.

I am responsible for how I feel.

I get the opportunity to practice not blaming someone else for how I feel, but to accept the other person as they are and work through my own trauma and heal old wounds and triggers.

I’ve been thinking recently about how I would love to get to a place where I am no longer triggered by anything or anyone. Perhaps this is an aspect of the Buddhist concept of enlightenment. . .

The Buddhist monks in the monastery across the road here practice non-reactivity — perhaps one of the first steps in becoming aware of our triggers. I remember one of the first meditation workshops I went to across the road, where the instruction was that while sitting in meditation, if you notice an itch on your nose, to pause and simply observe the itch. After you’ve given it some time and breathed into that space, then to go ahead and scratch the itch.

I asked for the thinking behind these instructions, and was told that this is to practice responding versus reacting.

I love the wisdom in this very simple practice. It’s perhaps another example of a Buddhist principle that takes a moment to learn but a lifetime to master.

The truth of my own experience is that sometimes I am more reactive with family members than with anyone else — they push my buttons; I get triggered. Perhaps this is because they also installed the buttons… written with an ironic smile.

Perhaps families offer more opportunity for practicing spiritual principles than any other crucible. I guess you could say that family is the ‘container’ where most people get to practice. But for our Buddhist monk friends across the road here, I’ve observed how the monastery becomes the container. In both scenarios of family and monastery, a kind of community or group is the setting for practicing non-reactivity and healing old wounds.

But this does not mean that other people will not have impact on us. While I am 100% responsible for how I feel, it’s also important to give and receive feedback on cause and effect, or to put it another way; our impact on each other.

Jamie and I have been participating in a Buddhist sutta study group (usually there are 6 of us) and the most recent sutta we’ve been discussing is one on “Right Speech.” We had one monk friend, Ajahn Asoko who presently lives in a monastery in England, join us via Zoom to discuss this sutta, and I was fascinated to hear of his experience of giving and receiving feedback with other monks in a monastery.

He shared with us a story about when he was a very junior monk living in a monastery in Thailand, and a senior monk spoke with him, and asked him about his experience. Ajahn Asoko told the senior monk that he was loving it. He just didn’t get involved in all the disputes and dramas of the other monks, so he felt very peaceful.

However, the senior monk told Ajahn Asoko that he was missing out on the opportunity for spiritual growth and evolution of consciousness. Ajahn Asoko had gifts to offer and he would learn more and grow more by interacting with the other monks. Perhaps an opportunity to jump into the “muck,” and trust that like the lotus flower, he would blossom because of, not in spite of.

This is an excerpt from an article written by one of their senior monks that describes how to give feedback in a skillful way (Searching for Right and Wrong by Ajahn Amaro, and again, my bolding)

We have many, many rules in our monastic tradition about how to live in harmony with other monastics in particular, and with the world in general. The proper procedures for how we should relate to each other are divided into several categories and very accurately described. I think they are a helpful model for any effort on our parts to right wrongs.

The first is to make yourself free of the fault you are criticizing in the other person. For instance, when your mind is racing on about people abusing the planet or misusing resources, you need to ask, “Am I doing any exploiting? Am I being greedy or acquisitive anywhere?” [And here I will interject with a little trick: whenever I catch myself criticizing or being judgmental, I practice adding to the end of it, “… and I am that too.” This transforms it from being judgmental into more of an act of observation.]

The second one is to choose the right time and place and situation to talk. In the monastery you must pick an informal moment, certainly not in front of the other monks, and then you must ask permission. “Would it be all right if I brought something to your attention?” The person can say “no.” They usually don’t. They usually say “yes” but with a certain prickliness. [this really made me laugh.]

Then you have to use speech that is gentle in all communication. If you are trying to set some political group or an industry right, you must consider the whole manner of expression and speak kindly.

The fourth is to stick to the facts, not to go into your opinions and extrapolations, or what others think. You must stick to what is tangible, verifiable.

The last one is to speak only with a heart of lovingkindness. I think this should come first.

Once I was annoyed by a senior monk who had an amazingly irritating modus operandi. I had seen how many times in the past people had rejected me when I got a brief together, stacked the evidence up, witnesses and everything, and came from a place of revenge instead of trying to help. 

So I was determined to wait until there was no aversion in my heart, until it was clear I could bring things to his attention in order to help him see the effect he was having around him. And it literally took me two or three years until it was clear I had no animosity. 

My mood completely changed, and I thought, “Right! Maybe I’ll just mention these things to him.” I found an informal situation to get together with him, and to my amazement I said things I never would have dreamed of bringing up before. “No, no. I couldn’t touch that one. That’s too risky, too near the bone to bring up.” 

Bout I found because of an atmosphere of friendship and affiliation, I was able to bring up the most sticky areas. And he was grateful! 

“Really? Is that the way I come across? I don’t mean that at all. Is that the way people see me? Wow!” 

No one had said it to him; he had never seen it. That was a great lesson to me: be patient, wait for the right time, until the sense of revenge is gone.

a screenshot of the publication where the above article resides online: https://inquiringmind.com/article/0902_4_amaro/

Perhaps I love this topic of feedback so much as I frequently give and receive feedback with the craft of writing. Writing workshops are designed for this, and my favorite workshops have been in The Gateless Writing Academy – the founder of which studied Buddhism in Sri Lanka. You may read more in this article I wrote: On Useful Feedback and Silencing the Inner Critic.

May we find harmony and healing within our communities!✨🦌✨🧚‍♀️🤸‍♀️🌼🌷🌈🌺🪷💕☀️😎💃🕺☯️🥰✨🌟💖🙏🕊️